For those thinking about joining SEMPO, they are giving those that do access to tools and services worth $2000. SEMPO yearly memberships are as low as $125 but you get some of the best tools of the trade as a bonus.Read more »

Companies in most cases have from many digital assets that they can play with when communication their message online, simple things as annual reports in PDF’s and Power Point presentations can be optimized and made visible through either own sites and/or such services as Slide Share.

Images from the last product launch can play an essential role on Google Image search and manuals in word can lower the load on support. Not forgetting social media such as Facebook, Twitter, the Company blog, Digg and Sphinn to mention few.

Implementing Digital Asset Optimization helps the search engines notice all your online content and everything from file names to meta-tags and HTML files to PDF files and Image labelling through Google Webmaster tools plays a role when it comes to holistic usage of the Internet as a marketing and communication channel.

Found this really good article called “SEO as a Marketing Discipline” written by Rishi Lakhani. It illustrates in a very good way the problems the search marketing industry is going through and what it is that is holding back the upper management. It’s a reccomended read for those wanting to understand how we can make this industry more professional.

“I don’t mean ignorance in a negative way – I mean people genuinely don’t understand the work involved behind SEO– especially at the top level of any organisation. Most people use search engines – but most assume their existence and the results pages as part of life.”

Just came from a session at the SES called Black hat/White hat “Unconferenced” hosted by Matt McGowan, Publisher & head of U.S. Incisive Media and Mike Grehan, Global VP Content, SES/Search Engine Watch and ClickZ (believe they are merging). Everyone that came to this session was offered a white hat or a black hat to wear, in my case I got the black.

Not that I am a black hat in the sense that I use under the radar none ethical tactics when marketing online, nobe more because that the size of the black hat fitted my head better. Great session that taught me black hats have bigger heads than white hats or that Matt and Mike did not order enough hats for people with big heads, either way fantastic session and great fun!

I was recently traveling on the US, speaking at the SES in NY. My eight year old daughter asked me to buy her a pair of shoes, to be exact Apple Bottoms. As I went to Footlocker to buy them I realized that they did not carry them anymore so I decided to Google and see what came up.

First when I searched Footlockers internal search nothing came up and as I have learned through the years Internal search on big sites can by quite faulty so I tested if Google found something but no results. But what happened was that JD Sports came up as a PPC result. JD was most likely not targeting me as I was in the US at the time with my Icelandic keyboard. But as I was searching on Google UK JD came up, with a nice ad saying

Apple Bottom at JD
Get the new line of Apple Bottoms
Women’s ware quick and easy at JD!

When I saw the add I tough to myself well if I cannot buy it in the US I might as well when I am next over to London. But when I clicked on the ad I got nothing, that is I got a page saying “Sorry, we have not been able match anything to your search” it was not a 404 page it was a search result page with no results. Still not sure where to buy the Apple Bottoms for my daughter.

Firstly what is a big site? Is it 10.000 pages or 100.000 or even 100.000? My experience is that sites that more than 10 .000 to 15.000 pages start to show the same symptoms, the main problem in most cases is the WCMS (web content management system), how it is used to manage the sites content.

This can be how templates are designed to show and possibly reuse content. Little problems within sites that contain millions of pages can occur again and again and grow from being a minor glitch in being a huge disaster that prevents search visibility.Read more »

Reykjavik Internet Marketing conference is just around the corner with speakers from Ericsson, Bing/Microsoft, Anomaly, CCP games and Icelandair to mention few. In its 6th year the conference is going to be bigger than ever, attracting a wider audience on an international basis. The conference is accompanied by an Expo that lasts all weekend, Netið 2010 (roughly translates Internet 2010). Some 40 – 50 companies are expected to show their Internet related products and services.

A few weeks ago, Google announced its new focus on fast loading pages as part of quality involved in the searching experience. This means that Google´s ranking algorithm may take into consideration the speed of a web page.

Since Google’s ranking algorithm isn’t 100% clear, the points below are rather a theory that may improve your website ranking in Google. Experiment if you can and share your results, here are some easy to make changes:Read more »

Derek Powazek says that Search Engine Optimization is not a legitimate form of marketing. It should not be undertaken by people with brains or souls. If someone charges you for SEO, you have been conned. He is titled author, designer and troublemaker, I am gona write this statement on the troublemaker part I am also going to write this statement on the realization after reading his post that he does not seem to know much about SEO and what it is all about, it’s not only for viagra and poker sites.

I really like this paragraph “Occasionally a darkside SEO master may find some loophole in the Google algorithm to exploit, which might actually lead to an increase in traffic. But that ill-gotten traffic gain won’t last long. Google changes the way it ranks its index monthly (if not more), so even if some SEO technique worked, and usually they don’t, it’ll last for a couple weeks, tops.” I really love this guy!